A Los Angeles-based nonprofit opened an early childhood center specifically for children whose families are seeking asylum in the United States. This center is one of the only places available where migrant children can play and learn for free.

An American delegation that gathered more than 150 federal officials and lawmakers for the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore this week sought to project an image of strength and unity amid growing tensions over Chinese territorial demands and North Korea’s nuclear program.

They’ve repeatedly been peppered by friends and foes alike on range of issues, with the harshest criticism reserved for American president Donald Trump’s unilateral trade tariffs designed to curb cheap steel and aluminum exports from China.

Canada imports more steel from America than it exports to the U.S. but wasn’t spared the Trump tariffs. Trump’s designation of Ottawa — one of America’s staunchest allies and its largest trading partner — as a national security threat rankled officials here.

Ottawa announced it will take Trump’s tariffs to the World Trade Organization for adjudication and slapped retributive levies on $12.8 billion in U.S. products, everything from bourbon and beer to motorboats and maple syrup.

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Although warmly greeting Defense secretary James Mattis in Singapore, delegations from France, Germany and India groused about similar levies on their metals and vowed to retaliate on a wide range of agricultural products.

The larger question, diplomats, spies and military members in Singapore say, is if Trump treats his foreign friends like this, how good is America’s word to its allies and partners in Asia, where rising China and Russia and a belligerent North Korea threaten U.S. power and regional stability?

While Mattis reemphasizes security alliances with nations rimming the Pacific and Indian Oceans and demands that Beijing abide by international norms and law to resolve territorial claims in the South China Sea, why is the White House threatening to shred economic pacts and desert trade organizations?

Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, tried to smooth ruffled feathers when he conceded to delegates on Saturday that the administration often practices “unusual ways,” urging patience because America’s larger economic and security interests and partnerships won’t become casualties to temporary trade spats.

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Echoing Mattis, Manisha Singh, the secretary running the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the U.S. State Department, told delegates late Saturday that Trump’s slogan “American First” has never meant America alone.

She pointed to the 4,200 American companies doing business in Singapore and hinted that the administration was revisiting the adoption of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a regional trade deal abandoned by Trump in favor off bilateral negotiations.

Singh said that Trump just wants America “to be an effective force in the world.”

Chinese People’s Liberation Army Senior Col. Zhou Bo lashed into what he saw as American hypocrisy. Beijing, he said, accounted for nearly a third of the globe’s economic growth and painted the United States as an outsider and “persistent factor of instability” in Asia.

He immediately pledged Chinese help in ridding the region of piracy, an economic and security issue to trade partners here.

“China’s actions are increasingly alienating many countries because they threaten the ability of many countries to determine their own future,” countered Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee, who led a delegation of three other representatives to the Singapore summit.

They were joined at a packed international news conference by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, a fiscal conservative who sits on the House Appropriations Committee and specializes in border security and defense budget issues.

Thornberry told The San Diego Union-Tribune that he agreed with Mattis that long-time alliances were more important “than any one decision on any one particular day.”

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“I would personally disagree with some of the decisions the president has made on trade but I think the president is right to shine the light on China’s predatory trading practices which have done damage to the international trading system,” he added.

“There’s no question that president Trump is unconventional in his negotiating tactics,” Thornberry said. “He does things differently but he’s also been a negotiator for his whole life so we’ll see where this goes.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that Trump’s levies and the threat of an escalating trade war with both China and friendly nations could cost 2.6 million American jobs.

Pointing to protectionist trade policies enacted in 1930 that exacerbated the Great Depression, Rep. Cueller warned that Trump’s policies could imperil the global economy.

He also raised concerns about the message Trump sent with his actions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The pact was designed to strengthen economic ties with Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam, nations crucial to securing American power in region.

“If we’re going to put on any penalties, they should go where the problem is, not to friends like Canada or Mexico,” Cueller said.

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, agreed that it might be the “right moment” to bring back TPP, hinting that it might be made possible by the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act of 2018.

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A member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Gardner was joined last week in Japan, Taiwan and Singapore by Senate Armed Services members Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Georgia’s David Perdue to promote the bipartisan legislation that’s designed to cement another four decades of persistent American presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

It authorizes up to $1.5 billion annually over the next five years to boost multilateral military, diplomatic and economic agreements with friendly nations; disarm nuclear North Korea; enforce international freedom of navigation through the sea lanes and airways of Asia; and shore up shaky cyber-security while combating human trafficking and the theft of intellectual property.

“This is the first president, probably in history, who came into office with trade promotion authority already at the White House,” Sen. Sullivan said. “A lot of presidents had to fight for that and it’s hard to get through the Congress. He got that. And we all supported that in 2015 and president (Barack) Obama got it for the last two years of his administration.”

Perdue emerged as the lawmaker with the strongest public support for Trump’s economic policies.

“At some point, and this is what president Trump is trying to say, a realignment isn’t necessarily mandatory for a rebalancing,” Perdue said. “What’s he’s asking for is more of a level playing field.”

The summit wrapped up Sunday.

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